May 8th, 2006---
They say in everyone’s life a little rain must fall. The annual Minden Cruisin’ for a Cure for St. Jude Car Show in Minden, La. has had its share of bad weather. Last year over 275 cars and 4000 people attended the show with the rain holding off until the end of the show. This year was pretty much a washout until around noon. The show promoter Schelley Brown said, “I was up all night watching the radar on the internet praying that we would miss the bad weather.” At 5:00 a.m. the rain and thunder were rolling into the Minden area. Opening the gates of the coke plant at 6:00 a.m., Brown said, she knew that it was going to be hard to reach any kind of goal when the weather man said 100% chance of strong storms and possible hail. At 8 a.m. we had a few cars show up but we were all just standing there wondering what we would do with all the silent auction items and all the t-shirts. The phone started ringing telling me what the radar was showing. These calls weren’t form local people they were from people in Jefferson, Texas and Arkansas that wanted to come to the show! Around 9 a.m. the rain started to slack up and the cars started to roll in. The 18-wheeler from Unique Performance with its expensive cargo of Chip Foose and Carroll Shelby cars opened up and rolled some amazing cars out for everyone to see. By 11:00 a.m. the show actually resembled last year with the people coming thru the gates and the cars lining up to register. When the engine fired up on the #6 Mark Martin Car the crowd cheered as if they were at a NASCAR race.
The cars were fewer in number but only due to the weather. Brown said she anticipated over 300 cars this year in fact she had 74 pre-registered. Anyone that goes to car shows knows that very few people pre-register. This means that if you have 74 pre-registered you can figure that you will have over 300 cars for the show. This is one of the fastest growing shows in the south and draws cars from a 300 mile radius. Brown said every year it just gets bigger and bigger. In fact it has gotten so big that she has decided that the show may have to be moved to the Minden Fair Grounds next year. Also a possible later date into the summer may be a possibility to try to keep the show DRY!
The antique and classic car folks showed what they were made of Saturday. These cars are normally not driven in bad weather or even possibilities of bad weather. Brown said that these folks come out to support the cause not to show the cars. Many came without there cars but showed up to help and to spend money at the silent auction. One of this years participants came all the way from San Diego, California. His award winning 1957 Chevy Nomad was one of the amazing cars on hand Saturday. This particular car is the cover car of the May issue of Cruisin’ Style Magazine. The Minden show continues to draw some top cars from all over the country and this year was no exception.
When it was all said and done Brown said she was pleased to report that she could at least send St. Jude a check for $10,000. This was not the $30,000 that she wanted to send but considering the weather she was excited to reach this amount. All we can do is look forward to next year and pray for NO RAIN! You can http://www.mindencruisinforacure.com/ or contact Schelley Brown at iluvoldcars@yahoo.com and 318-423-0192.
No comments:
Post a Comment